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Tools to Help with Scheduling Your Social Media Posts

social-media-toolsSocial media is a necessary part of marketing these days. Having a strong brand presence on social media is of great importance.

As a business owner or a marketer, you probably have a lot of on your plate and maintaining a constant social media presence can be difficult.  To make the process easier, the best thing you can do is to use a social media scheduling service. Even if you’re stuck in a meeting, you can still keep your status updates and tweets flowing.

Here are 4 tools for auto-scheduling your social media posts.

Sprout social

Price: $59 per month

Sprout Social is an engagement and management tool for social media.  It gives you a clear overview of response rates and follower demographics.

You can also use this tool to schedule and post updates to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Sprout Social provides a 30-day free trial. But if you wish to continue using it, you’ll have to pay a whopping $59 a month.

Hootsuite

Price: Free; Pro version – $8.99 a month

Hootsuite is a big player in social media management. It schedules your posts based on your previous social history so you’ll reach the largest number of followers. You can also edit the times and days before they go live.

Hootsuite lets you to schedule posts for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Google +. However, free users are only allowed to add up to 3 social networks. The Pro version, which starts at $8.99 a month, allows users to schedule up to 350 updates at once and add up to 100 social accounts.

Buffer

Price: Individual account – free; Business plan – $50 per month

Buffer lets you schedule 10 social updates all at once. This tool will spread your content throughout the day or week, making sure you have a solid social media presence even if you don’t spend much time in front of the computer.

As a bonus, Buffer also provides analytics from your social media posts. It works with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Timely

Price: Free

Timely allows you to choose the number of posts you’d like to auto schedule per day. Add to that, it also reviews responses from your previous tweets to determine your most optimal posting times. Timely only posts to Facebook or Twitter.

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Easy Ways to Expand Your Facebook Reach

BIMSFor many businesses, generating lead is one of the biggest advantages of creating and maintaining social presence. You create content that would pique the interest of your target audience and hope that it goes out to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, the days of posting and reaching all of your fans are gone.

The last year has brought many changes to social media. We’ve heard complaints from several businesses about the drop in organic reach for Facebook pages.

Using the right tactics will give you better results. Follow these tips to ensure that your posts can reach the audience you define.

Create awesome content

Like Google, Facebook puts a lot of emphasis on content quality and relevance. Being one of the biggest social network platforms, there’s a lot of competition out there. If you want to capture the attention of your target audience, then you need to provide them with killer content.

Higher engagement can increase your reach. The more people engage with your page, the more likely are they to see your posts. But if your content is not that interesting, you suffer the consequences of losing organic visibility.

Ask questions

One of the best ways to engage your followers is by asking them a question. Your goal is to start a conversation so be sure to start with an interesting question. Now that you got people to air their opinions, it is important to keep the conversation rolling.

Asking questions does not only help increase reach, it also provides answers to questions that may be crucial for your business’ marketing and sales.

Add call-to-action

Call-to-actions are a great way to get people to engage with your posts. Believe it or not, your audience tends to respond better when they are told what to do. However, most marketers and business owners fail to include a call-to action with their status updates.

Use better visuals

We’ve all heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. But it’s actually worth more than that in social media.

Videos and images often get more likes, shares and comments as compared to text-based status updates. ForCall  a more powerful post, consider placing your message along with the photo.

 

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Tips to Help You Generate More Leads from Your Website

public-domain-images-free-stock-photos-high-quality-resolution-downloads-public-domain-archive-14-1000x667A website is an essential business tool. Most businesses use it to generate leads. After all, nothing happens without a lead. No sales, no profit, no revenue, nothing! Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as throwing a “click here” button and watch as the leads start pouring in. In order to generate leads, you need to take a more strategic approach.

Here are some tips that will vault your online lead generation efforts into overdrive.

Get optimized

Undoubtedly, the best way to channel a flood of visitors to your website is to make sure that your site ranks in every search engine. People won’t visit your site if it’s on the 2nd or 3rd page of the search engine. With the competition getting tougher than ever, you need to work your best to achieve and maintain top search engine positions.

Make sure it’s mobile-friendly

Today, more and more people are using their mobile devices for online activities. In fact, studies indicate that mobile traffic accounts for at least one-third of the total web traffic. If you want more leads from your website, you need to make sure that people can access your site through their smart phones or tablet PCs.

Make your contact details visible

Don’t make visitors search for your contact information. Make sure that your phone number is clearly visible on every page. Some business owners make the mistake of thinking that potential customers prefer email as a means of communication. Survey reveals that 75% of client’s sales leads come in by phone.

Install a live chat feature

A lot of business owners think that live chat is only beneficial for retail businesses. But we believe that every business website can benefit from this tool.

Let’s take a restaurant as an example. Having a live chat feature is actually beneficial for this type of business since it helps facilitate reservation. Plus, it is very helpful for visitors, who have some questions or clarifications. We recommend businesses to assign an employee to answer customer queries during regular business hours. This simple step can produce significant results.

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Social Media Trends That Are Bad For Your Brand

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Social media marketing can be comparable to traditional media marketing. The only difference is that it is a lot faster. Trends waxes and wanes in hyper speed, going from cool to super lame in a matter of days or weeks. As a result, it is becoming more and more difficult to stay relevant.

Here’s a list of social media trends that can hurt your brand. Read on to find out which trend you should finally put to rest.

Facebook exclusive

Facebook may be one of the most popular social media channels today, but focusing your marketing efforts on Facebook is certainly not a good idea. Why? It’s because it has the most competition and advertising can be more expensive.

Focusing on one platform is like advertising on TV alone, and not using radio, print, billboards and any other channels to reach your audience.

Live blogging

During the SuperBowl event last year, a lot of people were active online, chatting and posting about the event as it happens. Some businesses took the opportunity to engage with their audience by posting something about the said event. If the brand is about sports, then this is justifiable. But if not, then there’s no sense talking about the SuperBowl.

Try focusing in topics that would be of interest to your target audience. They’re expecting you to provide them with content about specific topics, not some general world news.

Half-baked story

Social media is a great place to keep up with breaking news. We strongly advise that you check your facts first before sharing stories on your blog or business page. Do your research and make sure that the news is from a reliable source.

Sharing half-baked stories will affect your brand in a negative way. The last thing you want is for people to see you as an unreliable source.

Ignoring LinkedIn

If you’re not on LinkedIn, then you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to get more branding for your business. LinkedIn is the best social media platform for business owners and executives to be in. Here, you can expand your network and meet people in the same industry.

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5 Ways to Promote Your Blog on Social Media

bims_7.21So you have a great blog. You regularly post relevant and informative content, and that’s great. However, it will do you no good if you don’t have traffic coming your blog’s way. Without readers, your content will never maximize its reach.

For many bloggers, getting the word out about their newest venture can seem like a big challenge. But by promoting your blog on social media, you’re potentially exposing yourself or your business to millions of people from all over the world.

This week, we’re going to shed some light on how to promote your blog on social media. Keep reading for tips on how to drive traffic to your blog.

Add photos

Studies suggest that social media posts that include images get 12% more engagement as compared to those with no photos. So be sure to use full-sized images to get more likes, shares, comments and generate more traffic to your blog.

Share your blog posts on social media

If readers are not coming to your site, go to them instead. Give your fans and followers a taste of your blog by sharing your blog posts on social media.

Include the link to your status post, but be sure to delete it in your text before posting it. Your update will have a clickable image, which will direct users to your blog.

Use the right social channels

Considering that you know your target audience, we’re assuming that you know where they hang out. Concentrate your efforts where you audience spend their time on. If your target audience is foodies, you might want to spend more time on Pinterest. If your audience is the C-suite executives, LinkedIn might be their preferred social platform. Don’t waste your time on social channels that do not appeal to your audience.

Keep it short

Keep your posts short, clear and intriguing. People’s attention spans are short and they won’t be interested to slog through tons of information. Limit your posts to one sentence. If possible, keep it under 140 characters. Remember, short and witty updates generate the most engagement and click throughs.

Use conversation starters

Ask intriguing questions to the readers and direct them to your blog for answers. In order for them to get the answer to this specific question, they’ll need to click the link and read through your blog post. Now that you have captured their attention, write more interesting and informative blog posts to keep them coming back for more.

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Tips for Connecting with Industry Influencers on Social Media

BimsBlog 2.3.15Whether you’re running a small business or a big brand, you can reap great benefits when a highly influential person talks about your business. It can help you drive traffic to your site, increase your SEO and build your online social standing.

You need to be efficient with your time and even more effective with whom you choose to connect with. You want to be able to connect with industry influencers – people who have a success story, speak at conventions, widely published and well respected.

Here are a few tips for connecting with industry influencers on social media. Read on for a simple system you can immediately deploy.

Find your influencers

The first thing you need to do is to find your influencers. Industry influencers are industry experts and thought leaders that have a following that is similar to what you want to achieve. When looking at an influencer, take into account their search engine ranking, Klout score and number of followers.

Interact with them actively

Keep an eye out for influencers for chances to reach out. Interact with them through contents they are sharing. Feel free to ask a question if you think a particular point they’re making requires further explanation, show your appreciation for an article they have written or share their work through social media. Whatever you do, be genuine.

Nurture the relationship

Once you’ve engaged with an influencer, be sure to keep the lines of communication open and reach out to them once in a while. Take the initiative to strike up a conversation. Send them an email to let them know about a campaign you’re running or invite them to events you’re hosting. If you see you can provide assistance, do it. This can help grow your relationship and build trust with the influencer.

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Simple Ways to Grow Your Email List


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A mailing list is the preferred method of communication and cultivating long-term relationships with customers of smart and creative business owners. In fact, it is one of the most heavily used channels of communication to date.

As a marketer, it is your job to add fresh contacts to your email list on a regular basis. How exactly do you do that? We have heaps of ideas that can help you grow your email list. Read on to grow your audience, generate more leads and bring more business.

Make it easy to subscribe

Keep your offers upfront and be sure to include call-to-action buttons on about every page of your website. Don’t make people dig around your site. Put those sign up forms where visitors can easily see them.

Collect email addresses at in-person events

Collect email address at events such as educational panels, hackathons, conferences, meet ups etc. Just having a sign up form at events isn’t enough. You should train your people to collect email addresses at registration. Be sure to send them a welcome email that confirms their opt-in to your list.

Use social media

Promote an offer that requires an email submission on your Facebook page. Make it easy for people to join your list by adding a sign up form to your Facebook page. You can also create twitter campaign to promote one of your lead generation offers to your followers.

Give away something valuable

Think of building your email list as an exchange. Potential customers give you their email address, and in return, you provide them with something that is of value to them.

Everyone likes free stuff. So be sure to attach something valuable to your email sign up form. It can be an ebook, early access to new features, private blog content, video, cheat sheet etc. This is a surefire way to pique people’s interest and get them to sign the form.

 

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How to Create a Great First Impression Online

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Most of you know that first impressions are a big deal. You only get one chance to make a good impression so you have to make it right.

Living in the digital world, our first encounters with other people are often via social media, blog posts or email. And once you capture the attention of the public, the first thing they’re going to do is to run a Google search on you. The pressure is on. So where do you start?

Here are 4 simple ways to make a good first impression online.

Know your audience

Successful brands start out by getting to know their audience before they try to appeal to them. Consider the interest and needs of your target audience. Focus on people who are most likely to buy your products instead of appealing to the masses. This will yield better results and end up saving a lot of money in the process.

Be informational rather than promotional

A lot of business owner think that they need to do something flashy just to capture the attention of their target audience. But in order to stand out, you need to provide them with quality content, content that will appeal to your target audience. Let’s take Wikipedia as an example. Wikipedia is one of the least flashy sites on the Web, but it is also one of the most trusted. So, if you really want to stand out, provide people with informative and quality content rather than just showcasing your products on a regular basis.

Get your personal life out of the public eye

We often use social media channels to communicate with our family and friends. But now that you’re running a business, be sure to use a separate account when talking to potential clients and customers. Remember, people will be watching you. So you might as well get your personal life out of the public eye.

Don’t forget to clean up your social media profile once in a while. While it’s normal to have fun sometimes, you don’t want people to have a negative perception of you.

Your website

Apparently, you only have 3 seconds to grab a visitor’s attention. If you want them to stay, you need to take into account the design and usability of your website. Mind you, people are going to close the window or start looking at other sites if they don’t like what they see or don’t know what to do. Make sure that your content is easy to access and your site is easy to navigate.

 

 

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How to Maximize Your Content Shareability

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While it is impossible to tell whether or not your post will go viral, there are things you can do to increase its shareability and engagement factor. Here are some of them.

Write more in-depth posts

Not only is great content an important foundation of your website, it is the driving force for online engagement.

Useful and informative content gets the most number of shares. Another factor to consider is the uniqueness of your content. People are more likely to share your content if they find it interesting and fresh. Share your knowledge by offering how-tos FAQs, tutorials and user guides.

Make content easy to share

In order to increase the shareability of your content, you need to make it easy for your audience to share it. If there is a share button, things are as easy as clicking it. Plus, it is a subtle way of telling your visitors to share the content. It’s as if you’re saying, “Hey, did you like what you just read? Why not pass it along?”

Use images

Visual content is a fantastic marketing weapon. A great image can capture the attention of people and increase clickthroughs to your content. That said, you need to put extra care into choosing images for your blog content.

Keep in mind that images that look good on your site will not necessarily look good on social media. So be sure to determine the best image dimensions for every social network.

Captivating headline

We all know the importance of a great headline in getting people’s attention. Research shows that most people do not only scan the content’s body, they also scan the headline. If you want to increase the chances of your article getting read, it is best to limit your headline to 6 words.

When writing titles and headlines, it is also important to keep keywords in mind. This will not only help you stay visible in the feed, but to users who are interested on the said topic as well.

 

 

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Reasons Why Visitors Leave Your Website

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Increasing web traffic is hard enough. Capturing their attention and enticing them to stay longer, not to mention subscribe, sign up for your newsletters or buy, is even more difficult. According to the Nielsen Norman Group, most users stick around for less than 59 seconds. That means if you don’t get their attention and provide them what they want fast, you lose them permanently.

The question is, what makes them press the back button shortly after visiting your website? Let’s take a look at some of major reasons why users leave a website and what you can do about it.

Poor first impression

Your website is the house of your business. People visit it if they want to learn more about your products and services or want to have an idea about what your business is all about.

If the impression is good, then you might be welcoming a new set of loyal customers. But if you have a crappy site, people might not consider doing business with your company even if you have great products.

Slow loading

The attention span of the modern web surfer is limited. They don’t have time to wait for a slow website to finish loading.

If they are interested or really need to visit your site, they might wait. But if they have just clicked the link on impulse and they’re just curious to see what the site is all about, they are more likely to leave.

Too much distraction

Your website should guide your visitors step-by-step until such time that they are ready to buy. Having lots of information on your homepage will just confuse visitors. Do not bombard your visitors with too many options.  You’re just making it difficult for them to know how to proceed.

Too many ads

Suffocating your visitors with ads that flash, pop or fill the entire screen will only serve to enrage them. They are annoying and can drive users into leaving a website and never return. Ads can also kill webpage load time because of all the extra JavaScript files they have to call.

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